“I’ve asked the governor for a moratorium this year because I don’t think students are ready,” said FitzGerald during an interview with the Enquirer Thursday.

He clarified later that he’s not asking to halt the tests. But he wants to delay their consequences: specifically that third grade students would be held back if they don’t do well enough on the reading tests.

Criticizing the tests, ironically, is also a position some Republicans have taken. Rep. Peter Stautberg, R-Anderson Township, introduced a bill in January to halt the new Common Core tests that Ohio schools are required to administer in the next school year.

FitzGerald also wants Ohio to be tougher on charter schools and establish a college savings account for all kindergarten students.

FitzGerald, who is running against Republican Gov. John Kasich in November, recently began outlining his education platform including a proposal for universal preschool. He delved deeper into that issue Thursday, too.

Here’s what he had to say about:

FitzGerald’s said he’s been talking to teachers throughout the state, including those at an Ohio Education Association meeting last week.

“It’s really striking to me the number of teachers I talk to who are trying to take early retirement because of high stakes testing,” FitzgGerald said. “It’s not because they’re being evaluated, it’s because it’s taking the passion and joy out of the education process. The whole theory that the state is following right now, which is more and more testing, and that the testing is very high stakes testing, is, I think, a very flawed model.”

The results of Ohio’s standardized tests determine schools’ ratings on the Ohio Report Card. The results will also factor into teacher evaluations.

FitzGerald’s idea also meshes with the agenda of the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union. The OEA voted last week to support proposed legislation that would “hit the pause button on all high-stakes decisions based on student test results,” according to the group’s statement.

ON CHARTER SCHOOLS:

FitzGerald wants Ohio to be more aggressive in weeding out bad charter schools. He says they suck up too much money without enough oversight.

“We could do with more regulation and we could save taxpayer money at the same time,” he said.

ON COLLEGE SAVINGS

He would like (although he hasn’t proposed a policy yet) to expand a Cuyahoga County program that sets up a college savings account for every child when they’re in kindergarten. “It has kids thinking about what their potential is in the long run,” he said.

ON PREK

FitzGerald reflected on the successful preschool plan in Cuyahoga County, which he expanded as county executive. He estimates his statewide “PreK All the Way” plan would cost $500 million and would fund preschool seats for the 90,000 kids who aren’t in a federally sponsored program such as Head Start. He hasn’t specifically said where the money would come from. He said Kasich’s tax cuts would be enough to pay for it. He thinks there should be enough in the state’s $62 billion budget to figure it out.

ON OTHER EDUCATION INITIATIVES:

He has previously outlined six education principles: 1) Include educators in decisions; 2) increase state investment in education; 3) stop teaching to the tests; 4) reform the funding system so it doesn’t help for-profit groups that run failing schools; 5) focus on the “whole child” by including art, music, physical education, foreign language; and 6) invest in early education.